How To: Plan For Bills

For some reason I still get surprised by bills that arrive in the mail. I’ve lived out of home for over 4 years now and yet I’m never prepared when my water bill comes, or when the rates arrive or anything else. It’s never an issue of not having money, it’s more that I want to be more prepared for these things.

So this is what I’m going to do.

Print out 2 calendars with all the months and dates on them.

Write down all payments that happen on a certain day of the month in each month on both calendars

Go through the last year of bank statements and write down when bills were paid (I generally pay all my bills within a couple of days of receiving them).

Write them down on the one of the calendars and Ta Da! I have a list I can work off for the upcoming year.

Write down on the unused calendar at the start of the month when bills can be expected.

Stick it up somewhere and cross them off as they start arriving and noting what day they are paid/due.

Add any new bills to the calendar.

The good thing is that once this is done, it’s done. I don’t have to do it again until the following year and it’ll be a much easier process as I’ll only have to refer to the previous calendar. It’s also a good method because you don’t have to rely on a calendar year or a financial year. You can start and end at any month. I’m planning for my current calendar to be from September 2017 to August 2018.

I hope this helps to minimise the surprise of bills arriving. Lucky for me it’s never been an issue to pay bills but I’d just like to be more aware of when they’ll arrive.